Most retaining walls up to 4 feet tall including buried blocks can be finished without any special engineering.
Diy concrete retaining wall forms.
If your wall will be taller or adjacent to heavy loads such as along the side of a driveway consult a structural engineer.
Build a concrete form to hold the concrete for the cap.
A properly designed retaining wall will save you time and money.
This includes the cmu concrete masonry unit block and any stone or brick veneer.
Poured concrete retaining walls can be colored textured accented with embedded objects and much more.
The cap is made in a concrete form to fit the wall system.
Here are the steps tom ralston owner of tom ralston concrete in santa cruz ca follows when pouring a retaining wall.
Follow the block manufacturer s instructions for wall height limits.
Materials tools and site.
It would be advisable not to build the forms any taller than 4.
The interlocking retaining wall block can be used to build walls up to 24 to 36 inches high depending on the size of the block.
If the form is constructed incorrectly the concrete can blow out the form breaking it apart and creating an enormous mess while wasting much of your money.
To make the wall as strong as possible pour the concrete in layers no higher than 20 inches working from 1 end of the wall to the.
For example if you are pouring a retaining wall that will be 12 inches thick and will use wooden planks that are 1 1 2 inches thick for your forms you ll need to space the stakes about 15 inches apart 12 inches for the retaining wall plus two pieces of 1 1 2 inch thick wooden board.
When doing your own concrete work knowing how to form a homemade concrete wall is an essential skill.
The wall we built was a weekend long project and an exhausting one at that.
It took a day to rip out the old collapsing retaining wall to dig farther into the hill to provide room for the backfill gravel and to help unload materials.
How to build a concrete wall prep work.
Cut a piece of plywood 4 1 2 inches wider than the thickness of the.
Snap tie concrete forms are a simple and easy system for foundation walls.
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Building a cap form step 1 measure the total width of your wall system.
Since plywood comes in 4 x 8 sheets the forms are better off 8 long for the most part.
Avoid having downspouts pointed at the retaining wall and if it s against the house keep soil and mulch well below the siding.
Then pour your concrete inside the form using a chute or hose attached to the mixer.
For taller walls build shorter forms to add to the 4 sections.